bloodyrosemccoy | Entries tagged with bleu

Got me a twitter. I'm @AmeliaRoseWrite.

Mostly at this point it seems to be an excellent platform for shouting random one-liners into the void, or nominally directing them at certain demi-celebrities.* But it's probably a better option than standing on my back porch yelling every thought that comes into my head at the valley below me. And it's equally effective!

So, anyway, if anyone's interested in my bite-size thoughts, there they are.

*Who I care about much more than straight up celebrities. I could not care less what the strange shiny aliens in the waiting room magazines are doing, but it is a fact that

ursulav has been responsible for my migrations to more social media than is probably healthy.

**Mom apparently doesn't like it when I use the naughty word I originally used in the subject line. I'd scoff and use it anyway, but, y'know, it's my MOM.

Current Mood: British Breakfast

So I just watched possibly the creepiest nature show I have ever seen, barring that one special where David Attenborough told me all the ways wasps are the scariest fuckers on the planet.* This special was about Komodo dragons and how they hunt, and it also involved David Attenborough.

So they were all excited for this special because this time they were going to find out how the dragons hunt, unlike the last documentary they did where David just tossed a dead goat onto the beach and stood around hosting a nature show whilst roughly two million giant killer lizards tore a goat apart at his feet, and the basic message of the bit seemed to be “I’m David Attenborough, and I am standing in front of a feeding frenzy of KOMODO FUCKING DRAGONS.”**

This time, though, they locked him in the sound booth while the cameramen went off to see what dragons eat when badass naturalists aren’t around to toss them goat carcasses. And what they found out was that the dragons feast upon DREAD AND DESPAIR.

So the crew finds a water buffalo and sits around waiting for shit to happen, and they’re like “There is a lizard right there, shit should be happening, it literally just poked that buffalo in the side with its tongue,” but the buffalo and lizard both just look sort of bored.

Then, a bit later, the dragon lunges and chomps a chunk out of the buffalo, and the cameramen are like “FINALLY.” But the buffalo is all “OW WHAT THE FUCK, DRAGON?” and kicks the dragon, and the dragon backs off like, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t think you were using that chunk of flesh, my bad,” and then for a while nothing happens. The dragon goes back to staring intently at the buffalo, the buffalo goes about his business and bleeds a bit, and the camera guys are like “… That was it?”

And then they notice the other dragons.

As the day goes on, more and more dragons just sort of meander over to the buffalo’s vicinity. The buffalo continues to do whatever it is buffalo do, possibly muttering under its breath about asshole lizards, and the dragons make themselves comfortable. And just stare.

And the next day they are still there, staring at the buffalo.

They stay through the next day. And the next.

And this goes on for days, with the buffalo being like “Dragons, you are giving me the creeps,” but the dragons just KEEP STARING. Then the buffalo starts looking like it feels a bit under the weather, and moves less and less each day. And each day the dragons get closer and closer, all the time just WATCHING him, until finally THREE WEEKS LATER the buffalo keels over as the venom from that initial dragon bite finally knocks him down so hard he can’t get up.

AND THEN GIANT LIZARDS RIP HIM APART.

And then, a couple hours after the buffalo falls, they’ve stripped him of all his flesh, and they transform from a ravening mass of scaly eating machines to a bunch of lizards that just kind of wander off into the jungle, looking as though the past three weeks of glaring at a buffalo until he died was no big deal.

All that is left are the cameramen, standing there questioning the beliefs they held that there was any goodness to be found in the universe.***

I was going to watch the next special on the DVD—probably about penguins, since it’s impossible to do any nature program without at least half an hour of penguins—but first I had to check my closet for Komodo dragons. Facehuggers I can handle, but Komodo dragons? They’re just SPOOKY.

*Alien fans probably know that the xenomorph's life cycle is loosely based on the life cycle of the family of Ichneumon wasps. Many of the species in this family lay their eggs inside of a spider so that when the larvae hatch, they can eat their way out. The myriad ways they do this, it turns out, are WAY GODDAMN SCARIER than getting assaulted by a facehugger and then having the resulting ugly critter slam through your ribcage like the Kool-Aid Man. The ways the wasps do it make John Hurt’s famous death scene look as peaceful as getting carried off by angels while you sleep.

**This was also the series boasting a scene with the message “I am David Attenborough, and I am standing next to a FUCKING VOLCANO, which is erupting, BECAUSE I CAN.” This was back when he was a spry middle-aged badass and could film on location with only moderate wheezing.

***No, seriously, they had a behind-the-scenes bit where clearly distraught cameramen are confessing that they feel like they have become the dark harbingers of death as they follow this buffalo around.

Current Mood: Lady Grey
Current Music: David Attenborough Scares Your Ass Silly

My new favorite badass macro.

Current Mood: crazy

Dang, I wish I’d known about What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner.Com* way sooner in my life. Coulda saved my uncreative ass some serious headaches.

*In case the title doesn’t contain a strong enough hint, this site is NSFW due to strong language and CAPSLOCK.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Billy Joel ~ The River of Dreams

Y’all may recall that a while back I posted a somewhat laconic review of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. Now that I have just completed the series, I feel I owe I to you to post a follow-up. So, three books later, I do have a wordier commentary to offer you. Without further ado, my review of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series, including the books Old Man's War, The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe's Tale:

JESUS FUCKING OPTIMUS CHRIST I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOTHERFUCKING BOOK SERIES HOLY GODDAMN HELL YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW.

There, don’t you feel so much more satisfied now?

Current Mood: *_____*

All right! Got my pictures set up. I'm sure you're all dying to hear about the rest of my week, so let's start with the rest of the dinosaurs.

On Wednesday as we sat around trying to figure out what we could do before I went to work, Liz found a suggestion on the internet: the Museum of Ancient Life, a place I’ve always wanted to go to, but which just doesn’t register on my radar. So we got to be tourists together!

The lobby of the Museum of ~~Look At These Fucking Dinosaurs~~ Ancient Life.

The first thing was a travelin’ exhibit on light that would have been pretty cool to spend some time messing with. Unfortunately, it was overrun with kids—and while I’m glad kids are learning Science, it did make it hard to really get around.

After that was a long pointless black tunnel with blue Christmas lights on that wavelength that my glasses apparently refract so that they look 3-D. It was supposed to suggest The Beginning Of The Universe, but I admit I was a little worried that at the end of the tunnel John Cleese would request my liver.

There was a lot to see, but goddamn this is petrified lightning. (Okay, so it’s sand fused by a lightning strike. THE POINT STANDS.)

There were tons of fossil displays and plastic replicas of what those fossils looked like pre-fossil.

This may help explain why I am suspicious of seafood. In my experience, ocean life is something you find embedded in the middle of a rock, and it hasn’t technically been life for quite a while.

I want whoever made this exhibit to do my room.

I really love leaf impressions in rocks.

Boy, that ichthyosaurus sure makes an impression! WAHAHAHAHA I crack myself up.

But despite all this ancient life, we all know what the real theme of this museum is, right?

( LOOK AT THESE FUCKING DINOSAURS )

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Jonathan Coulton ~ The Future Soon

Cats, as you may know, are not particularly impressed with the way we celebrate our constitutional rights. I spent my July 4th in a neighbor’s house, reassuring their cats that the explosions were not going to eat them.

This was a follow-up to a rousing four-hour game of Distract The Small Child Until Bedtime. The kid has gotten more used to the idea that he goes to bed with me there and Mommy shows up after he has slept all night, so it's gotten easier. But I still wanted to wear him out, so there was a tour of his backyard, then across the street for a tour of my backyard and dinner with the family,* and playing cars.

Also, I got to watch the most hilarious small-child Educational Film ever. I forget precisely what it was called, but the basic message of the film was LOOK AT THIS FUCKING FIRE TRUCK. The narrator put on this hilarious gruff voice and would say things like “This isn’t some kids’ game! These firefighters are on a team, but they don’t play on a field! I’d like to see you climb this ten-story ladder, kid!”** It was like watching a cleaned-up badass macro. (“Jesus you know this fire truck will save the fuck out of some shit! And don’t think you can go where the ladder can’t fucking reach you, cuz bitches will inflate a raft like a fucking schoolbus to catch you jesus goddamn.”)

So I missed the usual tradition of setting off fireworks in the street.*** I could see them from the window, but they were a little muffled because of the enormous cat trying to wrap itself around my head. Fortunately, we get to set off more fireworks in a couple of weeks on account of Utah History, which is smarmy and obnoxious and covered up by turns, but which does allow for some fireworks, so I’ll just count those as the rockets’ red glare for me.

Oh, and the strategy to wear the kid out worked. He was out cold through the whole noisy evening.

*Complicated thanks to the kid's allergies. We had some alternative food for him, but following the tradition of preschoolers everywhere, he settled for a dinner consisting entirely of one substance. Ah, hamburger.

**He also said “Think about that the next time you see an elevator, kid!”, to which my small truck-loving companion observed that he had never, in fact, seen an elevator kid.

***A much less unnerving prospect this year because it’s been so soggy. Usually I’m more concerned that some genius will set the entire mountain on fire. It’s happened before. At which point you get the sequel to that kids film, LOOK AT THIS FUCKING WATERBOMBING HELICOPTER. Which is slightly less fun as you pack your things and worry that you'll never see your house again.

Current Mood: hungry
Current Music: Aretha Franklin ~ Respect

From

tzikeh: The Onion gives us an insight into the inner monologue of an internet troll.*

Also, this has been my dad’s life for the past three months trying to get his fancy new system to work. (WARNING: lots of naughty words!)

Sony Releases New Stupid Piece Of Shit That Doesn't Fucking Work

Imagine, if you will, six people gathered around their computer positively CRYING with laughter as they watch this, and you will see that it is Relevant To My Family's Interests.

*Actually, of your standard Fuckwad, of which trolls are a particularly odious subset.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Talking Heads ~ Psycho Killer

Those of you who have been with me for a while may know that I’m an absolute fan of swear words. They are one of my favorite areas of linguistic and anthropological study. I maintain that you can learn a lot about a culture by what they find taboo. And there is no more interesting outlet for linguistic creativity than the cuss.

Naturally, a lot of my conlangs have some fun swear words, and recently I started thinking about them again after demanding that

ysabetwordsmith post some of hers. So I thought I’d highlight one of my favorite curse conlangs here—Rredrra, the language of arhods (like Ghil, in my Doctors! stories, but he’s too classy to use most of these words). So I present to you: Rredrra swearing!

I wanted to give you the unusual stuff, so I left out most of the scatological swears, but rest assured that Rredrra has a lot of ’em. They’re mostly the usual kind, though, so who cares?

The odd thing about Rredrra curses is that they do not wax very creative with sexual vituperation. This can tell you a little more about them, as well—arhodes have an annual mating season,* and it’s not long enough for them to get creative with their sexual antics before they stop thinking about it. But they have other, sometimes odd, ideas of what’s nasty, including:

Hygiene deficiency

Hesh ka!

“Soak me!”

Meaning: Interjection like “My god!” or “Good grief!”

Strength: mild

Explanation: Arhods are not really meant to be based on cats. They do have some things in common with various cat species, but from a a mishmash of types, and these common elements are only superficial.** But there is one thing I based very much on all the cats I’ve known: arhods absolutely hate being wet. Really hate it. Obsessive-compulsive ones even have trouble with their bimonthly shower, although most feel dirtier without it. But most arhods get to the point where they dislike thinking or talking about it and find it a mildly unpleasant subject, enough so that it’s made its way into the lexicon of curses.

Some arhods don’t mind it; and of course some find it necessary in their jobs. They’re regarded as “strong-stomached” individuals, the kind an arhode version of Mike Rowe would have on his show. But it confuses Galactic citizens to see a happy, wet arhod in much the same way it confuses me to see a cat that does not rise straight up in the air when placed in contact with water . I thought that was a law of physics.

( And That's Only The Tip Of The Iceberg ... )

Current Mood: crazy
Current Music: Huey Lewis & The News ~ Hip to be Square

Zombie Apocalypse
Creating With Your Heart Day
Saint Anthony of Padua Feast Day
Birthday - Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (actresses)

What I Learned This Term:

The average life span of a house rabbit is 10-12 years. (I knew this, but now I have learned it.)
In comic art a good way to keep effect lines focused is to stick a tack at the focal point and rotate the straight edge around it.
Superman originally couldn’t fly; he would jump around like a flea. I had wondered about that because of the “able to leap tall buildings” bit, which seemed a little redundant if you could go sailing off through the ionosphere whenever you wanted to.
Subway sandwiches actually aren’t bad.
Budgies glow in the dark.
In linguistic subgrouping, shared innovation shows a closer relationship between languages than shared retention.
Wraparound pants are the coolest pants in the world. And they can help you with your worldbuilding projects!
There are two styles for wedging clay: the Western, also called “ramshead,” and the Eastern, or “chrysanthemum.” The second terms refer to the shapes the clay takes on.
I use “Fucking” as both an honorific and as a sign of derision. For examples, I give you: Sigourney Fucking Weaver versus Paris Fucking Hilton.
Patrick Fucking Stewart does the voice of Adventure in The Pagemaster, one of my favorite animated movies. This reinforces my theory that classically trained actors are filthy filthy whores. They’ll take any paycheck you offer them. And that’s awesome.
People interpret the word “diet” to mean “please offer me a disapproving opinion without noticing any of the other words in the sentence.”
Cobalt can undergo reversible oxygenation, meaning that it can work as a metalloprotein. Dweijidŕ, Ghiltrol, say hello to your blue blood.
There is one thing I can do better left-handed: I can pull clay into long, thin strips. I always wind up with little knobs and thin bits when I do it right-handed. Presumably this means I can also milk a cow better, since the motion’s almost identical, but we will have to study that further before we know for sure.
Originally, the word for apron was napron, but people saying a napron eventually started hearing it as an apron.
Linguists have actually discussed whether languages have “masculine” or “feminine” characteristics (I’m looking at you, Otto Jesperson).
The answer to the question “If I decide to make a career out of standing on rubber balls balancing tea trays and vases on my nose while swinging a hula hoop on my hips, what is my first step?” is: Wuqiao Acrobatics School.
You know you’re not cut out to watch porn when your first thought after the movie ends is, “Hey, that subplot with the dirty maid and the guy in the cravat and enormous platforms didn’t go anywhere.”
You should definitely make sure to hug your rabbit before you leave after spring break, because you’ll feel slightly better about it when she dies before you get back for summer vacation.
Either I really do have Jubilee’s mutant power of blowing up electronics, or every iPod in the Universe is a piece of shit.
It is actually possible to upstage Johnny Depp as a pirate.
It takes a month to get some psychiatrists to do paperwork.
Fraggle Rock stands the test of time. Rugrats doesn’t.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Rusted Root ~ Send Me On My Way

Library of Congress Day
National Teach Children to Save Day
Birthday - Barbra Streisand (singer, actress)

It may have to do with the fact that I started drinking my caffeinated tea right then, but today I perked up in linguistics and gender class right as we got to swear words.

Okay, it wasn’t the caffeine. I’m just a big fan of swear words.

Now this might seem odd for a girl from the white side of Salt Lake, a city so pasty that baby turtles on coasts hundreds of miles away mistake its light for the moon and move inland, a city where one of the biggest scandals during the Olympics was when Mitt Romney said The H-Word.* Or it might seem perfectly reasonable, in a forbidden fruit sort of way—but that’s not true either, because while Utah itself might cuss like Playhouse Disney, my family is full of old pros at it,** and I do not lack experience.

The thing is, I just find every aspect of swearing cool.

You can learn a lot about a culture by what it considers Taboo Language—look at the Victorian fears of the word “pants” or “leg,” or some languages’ words for certain relatives, and one I’ve heard of where the world for “left hand” is bad but don’t quote me on that. I love making up swears for my conlangs from this principle—basing curses on certain fun aspects of the societies, such as the arhode’s distaste for getting wet resulting in “go soak yourself” being a lot more vulgar than it is in English, or the sprites’ equivalent of “son of a bitch” meaning something along the lines of “black personality.”***

The sound of swear words can be fun, too. They’re often words that get spat out, so they slur if they’re polysyllabic. “Shit” is the most evocative of its literal description for me, but “damn” and “fuck” and their various forms are more fun to say.

Profanity is neurologically interesting, as well. Such interjections are actually stored in a different part of your brain, which is why it’s so easy to access “God dammit sonuvabitch” when you bang your shin. That’s also an explanation for the more well-known (but, might I add, least common) form of Tourette’s syndrome, when the tics include uncontrolled swearing or repetition of a phrase such as “you know,” and why people with various aphasias can still swear. (That’s also where you store song lyrics or poems you “know by heart,” and why after fifteen years I can still sing the entirety of “Yakko’s World.”) Once again, This Is Your Brain On Language is awesome.

I also like creative swearing, like they do on Firefly, which doesn’t seem like something you store but that you have time to think about. Favorites from that show include (translated from Mandarin), “Holy mother of god and all her wacky nephews!” and “Explosive diarrhea of an elephant!” It’s nasty, but funny.

And, of course, there’s the naughty rebellious feeling you get when you do swear. Street cred. Acceptable badness. It’s fun to play with the taboo. Even telling people that swearing is interesting sounds slightly rebellious, and you’re delighted with that.

I am, anyway. “Damn,” I seemed to be saying in class, “this shit is fanfuckintastic.”

*I am not making this Olympic scandal up.

**Slam. “God dammit sonuvabitch!” “Hey, everybody, Dad’s home!”

***The actual phrase is “Fulo vetuk!” If you think you know why that’s a joke, then present yourself to Ian McKellen for your prize. If you know why that’s a joke, then there is no hope for you.

Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Mannheim Steamroller ~ G Major Toccata

Bubble Gum Day
Freedom Day
Hula in the Coola Day
Robinson Crusoe Day
Women's Heart Health Day

Post-It notes are an interesting phenomenon to me. Unlike a nice long journal entry, they provide a snapshot of the inside of my head the same way doodles do for Liz.

People who ask me what goes on in my mind, though, probably would not be able to tell from something like the latest one, scribbled over the last few days:

Remember ~~the pharmacy~~ Tunnel

17!

lat. fric?

thl (like Welsh twilight

or athlete) light =

only beween syll. ^ blue

→ ‘th’ initially (season)

“soak” = expletive. Go get wet

or get soaked = go fuck

yourself. (Not ‘go soak your

head’)

Apparently, that’s what the inside of my head looks like before I organize it.

Discussion Question: Why do we say ‘go soak your head’? I came up with the phrase for Rredrra independently of the English idiom, which I had forgotten about. “Get soaked” makes sense as a rude comment in a species which, broadly speaking, finds being wet extremely distasteful and feels bathing is as private and taboo a matter as using the toilet. But why in English? Is it a suggestion to go drown yourself? Or what?

Current Mood: content
Current Music: Animal Planet ~ Blue Planet

Profile

bloodyrosemccoy

April 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Tweet Tweet, Yo!**
Perhaps I'll Cool Off And Watch Dexter Next
And Now For Something Completely Different
Genius!
Books I Have Been Reading Addendum
DINOSAURS SOME MORE!
The Challenge Ingredient Tonight: Fire
OnionSpam
Kinda With 'Em On The Sticky
The College Experience ~ Spring '07
Say The Word And Be Like Me
What Goes On In Your Heart, What Goes On In Your Mind

Style Credit

Style: Neutral Good for Practicality by timeasmymeasure

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated May. 24th, 2025 05:53 pm

The Desert Mermaid

I Am The Boss Princess

Entries tagged with bleu

Tweet Tweet, Yo!**

Perhaps I'll Cool Off And Watch Dexter Next

And Now For Something Completely Different

Genius!

Books I Have Been Reading Addendum

DINOSAURS SOME MORE!

The Challenge Ingredient Tonight: Fire

OnionSpam

Kinda With 'Em On The Sticky

The College Experience ~ Spring '07

Say The Word And Be Like Me

What Goes On In Your Heart, What Goes On In Your Mind